Many modern writers have taken a similar view: they
commend the Lacedaemonian constitution, and praise the legislator
for making conquest and war his sole aim, a doctrine which may be
refuted by argument and has long ago been refuted by facts. For most
men desire empire in the hope of accumulating the goods of fortune;
and on this ground Thibron and all those who have written about the
Lacedaemonian constitution have praised their legislator, because
the Lacedaemonians, by being trained to meet dangers, gained great
power. But surely they are not a happy people now that their empire
has passed away, nor was their legislator right. How ridiculous is the
result, if, when they are continuing in the observance of his laws and
no one interferes with them, they have lost the better part of life!
These writers further err about the sort of government which the
legislator should approve, for the government of freemen is nobler and
implies more virtue than despotic government. Neither is a city to
be deemed happy or a legislator to be praised because he trains his
citizens to conquer and obtain dominion over their neighbors, for
there is great evil in this. On a similar principle any citizen who
could, should obviously try to obtain the power in his own state-
the crime which the Lacedaemonians accuse king Pausanias of
attempting, although he had so great honor already.
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